1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a Japanese-to-Chinese machine translation apparatus which translates input Japanese into Chinese, a method of Japanese-to-Chinese machine translation, and a computer program product for Japanese-to-Chinese machine translation therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a Japanese-to-Chinese machine translation apparatus that translates input Japanese into corresponding Chinese includes a Japanese-to-Chinese translation dictionary in which a Japanese word and a Chinese translation thereof are stored in association with each other. When Japanese is supplied as an input, the Japanese-to-Chinese machine translation apparatus searches the Japanese-to-Chinese translation dictionary employing whole or a part of the input Japanese as a search key. Then, the Japanese-to-Chinese machine translation apparatus formulates corresponding Chinese to be output based on the search results of the Chinese translation.
In Japanese-to-Chinese translation, one Japanese word mostly needs to be translated into different Chinese words depending on a context. Hence, the Japanese-to-Chinese translation dictionary as mentioned above usually stores plural Chinese words as translations corresponding to one Japanese word. The Japanese-to-Chinese machine translation apparatus is required to perform processing to select an appropriate translation from plural Chinese translations depending on the context in which a corresponding Japanese word appears.
Conventionally, various techniques are employed to meet such a requirement. One commonly employed technique is to prepare a rule in advance for determining a translation of a particular word with reference to words that appear in the vicinity of the particular word or dependent words, and to select a translation based on the prepared rule. Another proposed technique is a translation learning in which a user checks an original text and a result of machine translation, and designates appropriate translation to the original word if the translation is inappropriate. Still another proposed technique is to supply a document written in a target language and relating to a field of an original document at the time of translation to the translation apparatus, and to make the translation apparatus preferentially select words appear in the supplied related document as translation (see, for example, Japanese Patent No. 3034295).
The conventional techniques as described above, however, are not advantageous. The previous preparation of translation determining rules implies preparation of an enormous amount of rules necessary for translation, which is difficult to perfectly realize in advance. The designation of translation by the user, on the other hand, requires the user to assign an appropriate translation to each word, resulting in an undue workload on the user. In addition, only the user who has the familiarity with the original language and the target language can perform such an operation. The provision of related document at the translation sometimes results in a preferential selection of inappropriate words since the exact correspondence between the original text and the translation is not known.